Whether you’re looking into purchasing a new yacht, or refitting an existing vessel, you may be wondering about the benefits of marine switchboards. In recent years, marine switchboards have become much more popular as a way to control the distribution of electricity.
A high-quality marine switchboard allows clean, properly-distributed power all throughout your vessel. In this article, we’ll talk more about the basics of marine switchboards, and the benefits of a professionally-installed, high-quality marine switchboard.
What Is A Marine Switchboard?
Smaller boats may use an electrical junction box to distribute power from the engines, batteries, and generators. However, this is impractical for larger boats, which often integrate multiple generators and motors, and require much higher electrical currents.
This is what marine switchboards are for. You can think of a marine switchboard as the “nerve center” of all electrical power systems on-board a vessel. The system is designed to take in all of the power generated from the motors, generators, and other sources, and distribute it to the rest of the ship, as required.
Usually, marine switchboards are located in the engine control room, or somewhere else on a ship that is within the center of distribution. They must be accessible in case of fire or flooding, so they’re usually installed farther away from the main machinery spaces in the vessel.
What Are The Benefits Of A Marine Switchboard?
The benefits of choosing a high-quality, professionally-installed marine switchboard from Fine Line Marine Electric are numerous. Here are just a few of them.
- Enhanced electrical safety – A marine switchboard is responsible for controlling power distribution throughout your entire vessel. Because of this, a switchboard must be chosen that incorporates standard safety features, such as overcurrent relays (OCR), short circuit protection fuses, and circuit breakers.A properly-installed marine switchboard ensures that your vessel is free of any electrical errors. This is very important if your boat is at sea, and far away from repair services.
- Reliable performance – A marine switchboard is designed to offer perpetual, 100% reliable performance. Though no electrical system is truly foolproof, today’s modern marine switchboards use intelligent system monitoring to provide clean, proper-voltage and amperage power to all of the most critical on-board ship systems.
- User-friendly monitoring – Older marine switchboards are often quite hard to use, especially with modern yacht software monitoring packages. Modern switchboards, however, offer user-friendly monitoring solutions that can be integrated with yacht control systems.By providing a better monitoring solution, yacht captains and owners can spot potential electrical malfunctions quickly, before they become crises. They can also ensure proper operation of all electrical systems, and an effective distribution of power.
- Redundancy – Marine switchboards integrate multiple redundant power distribution boxes and electrical components. With automatic shutdowns in case of short circuits, and highly redundant circuitry, most modern marine switchboards are highly redundant. In the rare event that one component fails, backup systems quickly begin functioning, to ensure no interruption of power delivery.
Choose Fine Line Marine Electric For Your Next Marine Switchboard!
Marine switchboards must often be custom-built for each yacht or boat. And at Fine Line Marine Electric, we have a team of experienced marine electricians who can design a replacement marine switchboard just for your craft.
You can trust us to create and install a reliable and efficient marine switchboard. So don’t wait. Contact us right away. We’d be happy to take a look at your yacht, and discuss the benefits that a custom-built marine switchboard could have.
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